The wheel chair would not fit through the door of his cabin, so it was tough getting him in this night. I had to push him up to his cabin which was no big deal, but I think help should have been offered. One of the handles of one crutch actually had a bent finishing nail holding the pin in. They only offered a mismatched set which were barely usable. This medical office did not even have a pair of crutches that were acceptable. No help was offered whatsoever after the visit. Tom felt better after the ankle was wrapped and the shot started to kick in. There was to be an orthopedic surgeon on duty then. The doctor gives Tom a shot for pain, some pills, and says come back in the morning for a further check up. He wraps the ankle with a pressure bandage. Down there, the doctor arrives, examines, and takes x-rays. Joyce and my wife took care of this “minor” detail as they lifted him on the stretcher and started down to medical 7 floors directly below. The untrained personnel made no attempt to immobilize / stabilize the leg. The stretcher arrives and my sister actually had to ask them to lower the stretcher so they could get him onto it. My wife and sister again insisted on the stretcher. Security then calls the nurse and she tried to talk Tom into the wheelchair idea again over the phone. My wife tells the head security person that he needs a stretcher, not a wheel chair. They are all afraid to offer help in any way. Even if we got him in it, where is his injured foot supposed to go? Security (4 of them now) just keep whispering among themselves and it’s so obvious that they are not trained for this. Tom is in terrible pain and cannot possible get himself in it. The wheel chair comes and there is just no way. She didn't listen to a word they said to her. My wife and sister both informed the nurse about the recent hip surgery and that he wouldn't be strong enough to lift his leg by himself. A couple minutes before the nurse left, Tom’s wife Joyce arrives and is obviously in shock as much as my wife and I were. Said she needed to get an exam room ready for his arrival.
She never went closer than 6 feet from Tom. WHAT? She say’s he’ll need a wheelchair and takes off. He responds and shows that he can and she replies that “it was just a bad sprain as you would not be able to move the ankle if it were broken”. She asks Tom “can you move you ankle and toes”. Due to recent hip surgery, Tom does not walk fast. She asked what happened and her first comment was “he was walking too fast”. He calls on his phone to someone and probably another 5 minutes goes by and a nurse shows up. At least 5 minutes later security comes, but no medical help. She called emergency on a nearby phone and it took forever to get an answer. My wife (an RN for almost 30 years) immediately jumped up and said “don‘t move”.
He and I both heard the crack of his ankle. Tom used to play rugby and knows about pain. Tonight, the wood floor was not only wet, it was slimy wet. This made for a very warm, moist environment in that area of the ship. The roof was retracted for a time on the first day but I never saw it open again the rest of the week. This due to the sun never hitting that area. We found out later that this area is almost always wet. He was no more than 3 lounge chairs away from us and his feet suddenly went out from under him as if he were on ice. My brother in law arrived about then and as he walked toward us we started to converse. There are lounges there and we sat waiting for the hot tub to clear a little. We waited for my brother in law to arrive in back of the hot tub where you can walk between the sides of the ship. We proceeded to the solarium where we found that the small hot tub there was open, but full. No reason to close 2 (cleaning is the excuse) out of 3 hot tubs on the ship at 8 o’clock in the evening.
They are going full blast with nets over them. We went out and found no outdoor hot tubs open for use. On Thursday evening my wife, myself, and my brother in law decided to skip the evening show and enjoy the hot tub. This put a damper of sorts on the rest of us the last couple days. I have to say that although the cruise was great, one of our group (8 of us) had a less then fantastic cruise. Haven’t had time to even think about a review yet, but I’ll do it this week. Just back from our Feb 13th Radiance cruise and what a great time we had.